Symbolism
Reading Quiz
O 1. There are two literal leaps in the poem “The
O
O
O
O
Leap.” What are they?
2. What is the subject of the poem “Jundee
Ameriki”?
3. In “One Perfect Rose,” an unnamed man
sends the speaker a rose. What does she say
that no one has ever sent her?
4. Which poem did you most enjoy?
5. What is one question you had about today’s
readings?
Symbol definitions
O a person, place, thing, or event that figuratively represents
or stands for something else. Often the thing or idea
represented is more abstract and general, and the symbol is
more concrete and particular.
O A traditional (or convention) symbol is one that recurs
frequently in (and beyond) literature and is thus immediately
recognizable to those who belong to a given culture. In
Western literature and culture, for example, the rose and
snake traditionally symbolize love and evil, respectively.
O Other symbols such as the scarlet letter in Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter instead accrue their complex
meanings only within a particular literary work; these are
sometimes called invented (or contextual) symbols.
What does each of these
symbols represent?
What are some other symbols
you can think of?
O What can a limousine symbolize?
???
???
Limousine
???
???
What symbolizes YOU?
O You have to get a tattoo that symbolizes who
you are or, perhaps, your journey.
O With what do you ink yourself?
Dorothy Parker “One Perfect
Rose”
O What is this poem about? What is the speaker’s
attitude toward the rose she received from her love?
O Why is the final stanza surprising when you first read
it? How do the preceding stanzas imply a more
conventional appreciation of the rose as a symbol of
love?
O What does the poem imply about the weakness of
“one perfect rose” (4) as a symbol of love? How might
such a symbol and language of love be manipulated?
O Is the speaker rejecting the rose, rejecting the love
that is symbolized, desirous of material goods, or
simply being funny?
Adrienne Rich “Diving into the
Wreck”
[Diving into the Wreck] is . . . a book of explorations, of travels. The
wreck she is diving into, in the very strong title poem, is the wreck of
obsolete myths, particularly myths about men and women. She is
journeying to something that is already in the past, in order to discover
for herself the reality behind the myth. . . . What she finds is part
treasure and part corpse, and she also finds that she herself is part of
it, a “half- destroyed instrument.” As explorer she is detached; she
carries a knife to cut her way in, cut structures apart; a camera to
record; and the book of myths itself, a book which has hitherto had no
place for explorers like herself. . . . The truth, it seems, is not just what
you find when you open a door: it is itself a door, which the poet is
always on the verge of going through.
From “Review of ‘Diving into the Wreck.’ ” In Gelpi and Gelpi, eds.,
Adrienne Rich’s Poetry and Prose (New York: Norton,
1993), 280–
81.
Discussion Questions
1. The diver in this poem says that she came for “the wreck and not the
story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth” (lines 62– 63). Why
isn’t Rich’s diver interested in the story of the wreck? What, exactly, is she
interested in and why? If Rich’s diver isn’t interested in stories, then why
does she talk so much about language in lines 53ff.?
2. What’s the significance of the specific activities through which Rich’s
diver
prepares for her dive and of the equipment she takes with her? What
about the descriptions of the difficulties she experiences at the beginning
of the dive (third stanza)?
3. What is the diver’s relationship to the sea (39– 40)?
4. What is the significance of the diver’s description of herself as both
“mermaid” and “merman,” “she” and “he,” in lines 72– 73 and 77? Has
she been changed in some way by her arrival at “the place,” or is there
another explanation for why this event comes here in the poem (71)?
Discussion Questions, cont.
5. What different things might the wreck and the
dive symbolize? What evidence from the poem
supports each of your interpretations?
6. What do you make of the ending of the poem,
particularly the switch from “I” to “We” in line 87?
Of the fact that the poem ends with the statement
that “our names do not appear” in the “book of
myths” (92– 94)?
What poets, scholars and academics have said
about this poem:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/r
ich/wreck.htm
Brian Turner “Jundee Ameriki”
1. Is the speaker the same person as the soldier
under surgery? Who is the speaker? Does the
poem contain any clues into the speaker’s
character?
2. Why does the speaker attribute to the suicide
bomber the incorrect words “Allah al Akbar” (15)
rather than the Arabic Allahu akbar?
3. How is the “kind of weeping the body does” (4)
related to the “dull grief of it / the body must learn
to absorb” (20)?